Arbutin Increases Caenorhabditis Elegans Longevity and Stress Resistance
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Arbutin increases Caenorhabditis elegans longevity and stress resistance Lin Zhou, Xueqi Fu, Liyan Jiang, Lu Wang, Shuju Bai, Yan Jiao, Shu Xing, Wannan Li and Junfeng Ma School of Life Sciences, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin Province, China ABSTRACT Arbutin (p-hydroxyphenyl-β-D-glucopyranoside), a well-known tyrosinase inhibitor, has been widely used as a cosmetic whitening agent. Although its natural role is to scavenge free radicals within cells, it has also exhibited useful activities for the treatment of diuresis, bacterial infections and cancer, as well as anti-inflammatory and anti-tussive activities. Because function of free radical scavenging is also related to antioxidant and the effects of arbutin on longevity and stress resistance in animals have not yet been confirmed, here the effects of arbutin on Caenorhabditis elegans were investigated. The results demonstrated that optimal concentrations of arbutin could extend lifespan and enhance resistance to oxidative stress. The underlying molecular mechanism for these effects involves decreased levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS), improvement of daf- 16 nuclear localization, and up-regulated expression of daf-16 and its downstream targets, including sod-3 and hsp16.2. In this work the roles of arbutin in lifespan and health are studied and the results support that arbutin is an antioxidant for maintaining overall health. Subjects Animal Behavior, Biochemistry, Molecular Biology Keywords Arbutin, C. elegans, daf-16, Stress, Longevity INTRODUCTION Tannins, also known as plant polyphenols, comprise the most common category of Submitted 16 October 2017 secondary metabolites and are present in all vegetative organs of flowering plants (Scalbert Accepted 27 November 2017 Published 20 December 2017 et al., 2005). Studies have shown that plant polyphenols mainly participate in plant chemical Corresponding author defenses by interfering with normal functions of various macromolecules (Spencer et al., Junfeng Ma, [email protected] 2008) and also exhibit antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, antitumor and other Academic editor biological activities (Balandrin et al., 1985). Angelo Piato Arbutin (C12H16O7), a plant polyphenol with a simple molecular structure, is widely Additional Information and distributed in animals, plants and microbes. It exhibits an acicular crystal habit and can Declarations can be found on page 13 be processed into a white or grey powder. Arbutin can dissolve in methyl alcohol, ethyl alcohol, acetonitrile and tetrahydrofuran, but it is insoluble in solvents such as cyclohexane, DOI 10.7717/peerj.4170 diethyl ether, chloroform, petroleum and DMSO. It is unstable and easily hydrolyzed in an Copyright acid environment, but it has been successfully isolated using plant extraction techniques, 2017 Zhou et al. biological transformation, organic synthesis and enzymatic synthesis methods (Seo et al., Distributed under 2012). Arbutin possesses two functional groups, a hydrophilic anhydroglucose group and a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 melanin synthase inhibitory phenolic group. The latter group inhibits melanin synthase to OPEN ACCESS lighten hair and it is the reason that arbutin was widely used in the cosmetic hairdressing How to cite this article Zhou et al. (2017), Arbutin increases Caenorhabditis elegans longevity and stress resistance. PeerJ 5:e4170; DOI 10.7717/peerj.4170 industry. Furthermore, recent reports have showed that arbutin exhibited many biological activities, including antioxidant, diuretic, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, anti-tussive, anticancer and so on (Mustapha et al., 2016). As an animal model for human biomedical research, Caenorhabditis elegans presents many advantages, such as easy culture and rapid reproduction with short generation times. Moreover, the organism is visible, due to its translucent body that allows fluorescence labeled organs to be easily visualized. Furthermore, this organism exist numerous recombinant strains which incorporate GFP reporter genes for many important cellular pathways, including aging, oxidative stress tolerance and many diseases (Abbas & Wink, 2010; Henderson & Johnson, 2001; Hsu, Murphy & Kenyon, 2003; Link et al., 2015). Finally, C. elegans is a suitable tool for the study of human health conditions and diseases because its homologues have been identified for 60–80% of human genes (Kaletta & Hengartner, 2006). In this study, we investigated the effects of arbutin on C. elegans longevity and stress resistance and evaluated the signaling pathways involved. MATERIALS AND METHODS Chemicals and reagents Juglone, DCFH-DA and sodium azide were purchased from TransGen Biotech Co., Ltd. (Beijing, China). All other chemicals were of analytical or reagent grade. C. elegans strains and maintenance The following strains in this study were obtained from the Caenorhabditis Genetics Center: wild type N2, CF1038 (daf-16(mu86)I), TJ356 zIs356 (daf-16p::daf-16a/b::GFPCrol- 6(su1006)). Worms were maintained at 20 ◦C on agar plates containing nematode growth medium (NGM, 1.7% agar, 25 mM potassium phosphate, pH 6.0, 50 mM NaCl, 2.5 mg/ml peptone, 5 mg/ml cholesterol, 1 mM MgSO4, 1 mM CaCl2) seeded with Escherichia coli OP50. Arbutin (Wuhan Fude Chemical Co., Ltd., Wuhan City, Hubei Province, China; >98% pure, HPLC grade) dissolved in ultrapure water to a concentration of 50 mM and added directly to E. coli OP50 cultured in LB liquid medium supplement present to final concentrations of 0.5, 2.5, 5, 10 and 20 mM. Lifespan assay The lifespan assay of C. elegans was investigated as previously described (Schlotterer et al., 2009). The pre-fertile period of adulthood was used as time zero (t D 0). The nematodes were maintained on NGM plates containing either various concentrations of arbutin or vehicle (control) from birth and transferred to new plates every day. Worms were recorded as dead if they did not move after repeated stimulus and they were excluded if they crawled away from the plate. The assays were running until all animals died. Experiments were performed in at least triplicate with 120 nematodes each at 20 ◦C. All subsequent assays were conducted using the most effective concentration in inducing lifespan extension relative to wild type controls. Zhou et al. (2017), PeerJ, DOI 10.7717/peerj.4170 2/15 Stress resistance assays Twenty gravid adult nematodes (N2 or CF1038) were placed on NGM plates seeded with E. coli strain OP50 together with no arbutin (control group) or 5 mM arbutin (experimental group). Worms were allowed to lay eggs at 20 ◦C for approximately 2 h to obtain a synchronous population. Then, they were removed and the plates were placed back at 20 ◦C until the progeny reached young adulthood (about 72 h). Worms were transferred to fresh control plates or arbutin plates every day. On the fifth day (at about 120 h), animals were submitted to various kinds of stressors. Experiments were performed in triplicate, with 60 nematodes each at least. In the heat shock stress assay, animals were transferred from 20 ◦C to 35 ◦C incubator and the number of surviving worms were recorded every hour until all worms died. In the juglone stress assay, worms were placed in 96-well plates containing 200 ml S medium (100 mM NaCl, 0.01 mM cholesterol and 50 mM potassium phosphate, pH 6.0) with 200 mM juglone in each well (Waterston & Brenner, 1978). Worms were observed at 20 ◦C every hour until no worms remained alive. In the UV-irradiation stress assay, worms were treated with 254 nm UVC irradiation with a dose of 1,000 J/m2 for 8 min 40 s and immediately transferred to 20 ◦C incubator. Animals were counted every 12 h until they died. Measurement of general ROS levels Five-day-old worms with or without 5 mM arbutin treatment from birth were transferred into 100 ml M9 buffer (22 mM KH2PO4, 42 mM Na2HPO4, 85 mM NaCl, 1 mM MgSO4) with 200 mM DCFH-DA. After incubation with DCFH-DA for 2 h, animals were washed with M9 buffer to remove residual DCFH-DA. And then they were transferred to 96-well plates containing 200 ml M9 buffer per well. ROS-associated fluorescence levels were measured using a fluorescence microplate reader (Infinite F200 PRO, Tecan, Switzerland) at 485 nm excitation and 535 nm emission settings. Arbutin-treated group relative fluorescence unit (RFU) was compared with control group of which mean value RFU was set as 1 to reflect relative ROS levels. Ten worms were added to each well and at least twenty parallel wells were performed for each group (control or 5 mM arbutin treatment). Fluorescence quantification of DAF-16::GFP Transgenic strains TJ356 worms harboring the DAF-16::GFP reporter gene were subjected to arbutin treatments from birth to 5 days of age. Then, they were treated with 35 ◦C heat shock for 30 min. Later, animals were narcotized with 10 mM sodium azide and fixed to glass slides containing 5% agar for observation under a fluorescence microscope. DAF-16 expression corresponded with green fluorescence intensity. Experiments were performed in at least triplicate, with 10 nematodes each. Quantitative real-time PCR After birth followed by 5 days of incubation either with or without 5 mM arbutin, worms were collected and washed with M9 buffer to remove residual E. coli OP50 on their skin. Trizol reagent (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA) was used for total RNA extraction. The primers used in RT-PCR were as follows: daf-16, Zhou et al. (2017), PeerJ, DOI 10.7717/peerj.4170 3/15 50-TTTCCGTCCCCGAACTCAA-30 and 50-ATTCGCCAACCCATGATGG-30; sod-3, 50-AGCATCATGCCACCTACGTGA-30 and 50-CACCACCATTGAATTTCAGCG-30; hsp-16.2, 50- CTGCAGAATCTCTCCATCTGAGTC -30 and 50-AGATTCGAAGCAACTG CACC -30; ama-1, 50-CTGACCCAAAGAACACGGTGA-30 and 50-TCCAATTCGATCCGA AGAAGC-30. The gene ama-1 was used as an internal reference gene and the AB 7500 RT- PCR (Applied Biosystems, Foster City, CA, USA) detection system was used to visualize RT-PCR products. RT-PCR data were analyzed using the comparative 2−44Ct method (Livak & Schmittgen, 2001). Experiments were performed in at least triplicate, with 200 nematodes per group for total RNA extraction.